The vulnerability assessment of architectural cultural heritage represents a challenging, however necessary, activity towards defining risk preparedness plans for historic urban environments and more resilient communities. Nevertheless, the singularities and specificities that historical constructions often present the need for customising/tailoring and adapting generalised and common vulnerability assessment approaches. The balance between detail and scale when surveying historical structures implies that the feasibility of achieving urban-scale data acquisitions depends primarily on adopting relatively simple models and descriptions. In this sense, several simplified (often parametric) approaches have been developed for assessing the seismic vulnerability of historical constructions based on a limited set of descriptors. Although the selection of the parameters that influence the seismic response of the structures have been drawn from empirical observations (e.g., in the aftermath of intense seismic events), such regressive analysis may be improved and facilitated by employing Machine Learning categorisation algorithms. This chapter investigates the usability of parameter-based screenings of historical cities for assembling an urban-scale database that is further used for assessing the analytical vulnerability of historical constructions based on existing intensity/damage models. Furthermore, the observations acquired in the aftermath of a strong seismic event (that of the 19th of September 2017 in Mexico) are herein used for calibrating the model using a Random Forest Classifier algorithm, achieving a more representative intensity/damage model and, therefore, representing an opportunity for obtaining typologically tailored seismic vulnerability models in the context of a feasible urban-scale survey and post-earthquake observations. These trained algorithms are valuable tools in supporting risk preparedness and management policies based on the results of rapid screenings for proactively identifying vulnerable assets and evaluating the impact of different mitigation measures.

There is a growing tendency to assess resilience and sustainability of critical infrastructures (CI), given the significant increment in high-impact natural hazard events affecting socio-economic welfare. Historically, these assessments have been conducted separately due to the independent evolution of each concept. However, recent contributions tend to integrate them. This paper provides a state-of-the-art review of integrated assessments for resilience and sustainability in CI, examining concepts, indicators, frameworks, and methodologies. Additionally, a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis was performed to gain further insights into the prospects of integrated assessments. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology, eligibility criteria were established, leading to the selection of twelve studies. These works were compared based on five dimensions (economic, environmental, social, technical, and governance) to highlight the differences in the indicators used. While all studies considered the social, environmental, and economic dimensions, some did not further analyze sufficient indicators to evaluate environmental and social effects, with governance often neglected. This study emphasizes the relevance of establishing common metrics for a convergent frame for the resilience and sustainability assessment. The findings presented suggest that integrated assessments lead to a more strategic use of resources toward more resilient CI.

Properties of adobe are highly dependent on the local soil composition and can vary significantly depending on fabrication techniques, configurations and state of conservation. The effect of the earthquakes that occurred in 2017 in Mexico relaunched discussion regarding the adequacy and safety of adobe-based constructions – a debate that involves many economic, cultural and social facets related to vernacular expressions and ways of life, long-term sustainability and risk management. In an effort to contribute to this, this paper includes and discusses a series of experiments carried out in typologically representative adobe constructions in the municipality of Tepoztlán (state of Morelos, Mexico). A campaign of ultrasonic pulse velocity tests was conducted on 13 historical buildings with the objective of assessing the variability of the adobe material present in those buildings. Some adobe units were then collected and tested in a laboratory to assess their compressive strength and stress/strain behaviour. From these two sets of experiments, it was possible to obtain valuable insights into the mechanical properties of the adobe that constitutes the characteristic housing typology in the region.

The characterisation of the seismic vulnerability of historical constructions represents a complex problem in which the typological variability, the difficulty of performing reliable large-scale assessments and dealing with a large database all play a role. Nevertheless, reducing the uncertainty regarding the structural vulnerability of the existing building stock (mostly for small and/or isolated human settlements) is key for risk assessment and management. The present work proposes a novel approach based on the integration of a series of open-source tools for assembling a vulnerability-oriented database that is linked to a series of external services for increasing its capabilities. The database was implemented in a Geographical Information System (GIS) environment and contains the survey of a seismic vulnerability index for masonry constructions based on an adapted version of the GNDT-II approach. A customised Python-based software for reading, managing and editing the database is herein presented. This program allows the execution of the most typical operations with no assistance from the GIS environment, facilitating user interaction. Furthermore, the calculations regarding the vulnerability index and levels of damage have been implemented in this program. Alternatives for distributing the database are implemented and discussed, such as cloud-based distribution and the use of the Transactional Web Feature Service (WFS-T) protocol for its virtual publishing. The entire framework herein presented is a replicable and feasible workflow that can be set even with reduced infrastructure, allowing a progressive enlargement.

In September 2017, two strong earthquakes hit the central region of Mexico, producing substantial damage to the historical buildings. A retroactive analysis for assessing the pre-event seismic vulnerability of these constructions allowed for testing the suitability of an existing parameter-based approach based on material and geometrical features. More than 160 adobe buildings in four municipalities of the State of Morelos were surveyed and included in a vulnerability-oriented GIS database. Data were collected on-site and managed by resorting to open-source GIS software combined with a Python-based database management tool and a cloud-based platform for onsite data collection using mobile devices. The parameter-based approach was used for assessing the analytical seismic vulnerability of the buildings and implementing a secondary, more conservative assessment that considers uncertainties associated with the data acquisition process. The capabilities of the database were further used to train a Machine Learning algorithm aimed at overcoming some representativeness limitations of the parameter-based analytical method. This third approach was found to be suitable for assessing the vulnerability of the building typologies addressed in this investigation. Although the implementation discussed in this paper is limited to a specific vernacular typology, it can be used to conduct customized local calibrations.

The seismic vulnerability assessment of large sets of constructions is meaningful for anticipating post-earthquake scenarios in the context of loss prevention and resilience. These activities must overcome several difficulties related to the size and heterogeneity of the building stock, becoming even more complex when addressed to historical and vernacular structures. The analysis of post-earthquake data has permitted the design of vulnerability assessment methods based on the identification of parameters related to the geometrical, structural and material features that rule the seismic behaviour of different typologies. A dataset of information about the 2017 Earthquakes in Mexico is used to discuss the suitability of a pre-established seismic vulnerability index approach. The compatibility between this approach and the information contained in the National Catalogue of Historical Monuments is the departure point for estimating levels of damage, which are then compared with those recorded in 2017. This implementation requires a series of adaptations and strategies, including the adjustment of the description of the parameters for the Mexican context and the development of a strategy for considering the uncertainty when the information is limited, offering an alternative more conservative output. Based on the results of the comparison between the levels of damage estimated using the vulnerability index approach adopted in this paper and those recorded in the aftermath of the 2017 Earthquakes in Mexico, it is plausible to confirm that this approach can be used in future seismic vulnerability assessment works in this region, provided that the limitations identified and discussed here are considered.

Historic urban centres are, almost by definition, risk-prone areas. The buildings in the historical sites are often highly vulnerable to natural and human-made hazards, not only due to their construction and material characteristics but also because they are usually very degraded due to ineffective maintenance and conservation policies. Moreover, the recent world tourism boom has led to a significant increase in the number of people who live, work and visit these areas, which, together with land use and climate change-related impacts, make historic centres particularly exposed areas. This paper addresses the issue of assessing and managing risk in historic urban centres departing from the complexity of defining the historic city and the concept of risk, providing a comprehensive discussion on current trends and future research directions in this field. After analysing the most suitable methodologies to assess the vulnerability of these areas to different hazards, the focus is on data collection and organisation-related issues and how the different vulnerability assessment outputs can be used to manage and mitigate risk. Vulnerability and loss scenarios, evacuation and emergency planning, and retrofit and cost-benefit analyses are some of the aspects addressed herein. This discussion includes some considerations on the accuracy of these approaches and aspects related to their calibration and validation, covering from empirical calibration models to advanced artificial Intelligence-based techniques.

The possibility of characterising an existing building based on a limited set of attributes would permit building a semantical, graphical or even conceptual model that could serve as a reference for analytical purposes. Providing that the intent of the analysis and the evaluation procedures are consistent with each other and coherent with the description, it is plausible to assume that the data required to build such a conceptual model could be obtained by resorting, for example, to an ad-hoc survey composed of a set of pre-selected parameters. In the context of a growing interest in preserving Mexican cultural heritage, there has been a continuous effort to catalogue the buildings that, under the corresponding legal definition, are considered historical monuments; in this case, all constructions dated from the early 16th century until 1900. This catalogue has allowed putting together a comprehensive database of the Mexican architectonic heritage. Among other applications, this catalogue has been used to support intervention decision making, particularly in the sequence of recent seismic events in Mexico. Much of the information included in the current version of the catalogue is related to the buildings’ structural characteristics, making it pertinent to discuss the suitability of using these data for feeding simplified vulnerability assessment methodologies. With this in view, the present paper explores and discusses the feasibility of a transversal use of an index-based seismic vulnerability assessment approach for façade walls together with the Mexican National Catalogue of Historical Monuments. For such, the methodology—a pre-established vulnerability assessment approach for façade walls—was applied to a set of representative masonry buildings damaged by the 2017 Puebla earthquake. Furthermore, this paper offers a proposal for enhancing the existing survey to obtain data that would permit to include a semi-quantitative index for vulnerability as a part of the current catalogue works.

Architectonic manifestations are vehicles for the creativity and the spirit of a culture. These assets represent documental evidence of human technical capacities, beliefs, identities and the vision that people have about themselves and the world. The city, then, represents a process of permanent construction of heritage as one of the cores for collective cohesion [1]. It is important to recognise the symbiosis between the intangible and tangible values that coexist in a cultural asset. In other words, to identify and characterise the physical consequences of the cultural assets (such as colours, geometries, spatial organisations, elements of design, etc.) is a necessary step for contextualising the object and its intangible values. Protecting the cultural heritage is an essential activity for ensuring the continuity of a culture and its values; the presence of cultural assets is not sufficient by itself. It is necessary to adequately transmit and share their meanings and values. In other words, the social function of heritage depends on the socialisation and adequate interpretation of the material objects. The international recommendations on Historic Urban Landscapes (HULs) [2] remark the value of documenting the historical city as a step for promoting the knowledge of cultural assets. This process is important for sharing, but also for the development of scientifically supported interventions, also in the context of natural risks [3].

The use of digital representations of physical objects allows to simulate phenomena and predict behaviours. The representativeness of a model is based on the congruency between the code, the survey and the modelling strategies. In terms of physical space, two important approaches are the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Building Information Modelling (BIM). GIS approach is intended to code environmental information based on geographical references. BIM approach is intended to code buildings in terms of their components, generating parametric descriptions. For historic buildings, BIM extends to the so-called Historical BIM models (HBIM). Together, these strategies allow coding territorial-scale entities, such as historical centres. An application for these models would be the simulation of risk situations, leading to vulnerability analysis. Despite the existence of GIS-BIM-HBIM integration examples, most of their procedures are designed to fit with a specific case study, which questions the suitability of a general coding framework. This paper presents a vision of state-of-the-art technologies and strategies for coding, surveying and model historical centres, with emphases on the analysis of urban vulnerability and risk. Finally, we propose a general comprehensive framework on the convergences of GIS-BIM-HBIM technologies and successful practices.

The assessment of the seismic performance of historical buildings faces numerous challenges, mostly related to the diversity of the building stock and the uncertainties associated with the characterisation of the structural and construction systems. However, such assessment is essential, not only considering the human and material losses that can stem from the poor seismic performance of these buildings but also due to the role that historical constructions play in terms of housing and economic activities, particularly in the context of urban historical centres. Several approaches are currently available for this purpose. Among those, index-based methods have been gaining momentum worldwide due to their excellent balance between simplicity and accuracy. These semi-quantitative techniques, known in the literature as first-level approaches, permits to estimate the levels of damage for specific seismic intensities based on a ponderation of a series of structural and architectonic characteristics. However, so that the outputs obtained from these methods can be considered reliable, it is fundamental to adopt data collection strategies that can be simultaneously expeditious but capable of offering high-quality information. At present, Geographic Information System (GIS) tools are valuable databases for storing a wide variety of information. Moreover, the democratisation of portable informatic devices, namely smartphones and tablets, has enabled to decentralise those databases, speeding up processes and making work more collaborative. This paper details a suitable workflow that considers the use and adaptation of open-source tools, starting from creating a GIS database, the design of a survey specifically tailored to feed an index-based vulnerability-assessment approach, and its implementation in an open cloud service and its distribution through open-source smartphone apps. The city of Atlixco (Puebla, Mexico) and the September 19th, 2017 earthquake are used here to analyse and discuss the application of such a workflow in a real case-study.

The Historic Urban Landscape provides a basis to comprehensively study the city, considering the numerous agents and stakeholders involved in the urban phenomenon. However, the characterisation of the city is challenging, due to the numerous ways of reading and using the city. Although several theoretical approaches address the process of documenting the city, there is still a gap related to the design of a generalised, holistic, and comprehensive framework. This article aims to contribute to this purpose by discussing the concept of the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) and its implications for the characterisation of the urban phenomena. The Aristotelian theory of the causes is proposed here as a suitable approach for the description, characterisation, and analysis of virtually any entity by first discussing its theoretical basis and then testing it in a real building located in the historical city, Guimarães, Portugal. A set of tools related to Geographic Information System databases are comprehensively explored during the implementation process of the approach, allowing to identify and discuss a set of limitations, challenges, and opportunities.